


Objects In Motion

by DarylDixonGrimes



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Anal Sex, M/M, Oblivious Rick, bottom!daryl, briefly mentioned object insertion, jerking off, spit, they boutta fuck, top!rick, virgin!Daryl
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-04
Updated: 2017-11-04
Packaged: 2019-01-29 13:18:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12631848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarylDixonGrimes/pseuds/DarylDixonGrimes
Summary: "He looks back up at the house. Somewhere inside, Daryl is sulking, avoiding him because he’s hurt that Rick laughed at the mere suggestion of them.He wants to kiss me.And the former deputy can’t stop his brain from going there, from giving him an image of him and Daryl locked together in a kiss. And it’s not some chaste little moment, no. It’s the two of them wrapped around each other, vines entangling and intertwining until there would be no way of knowing where one man stops and another begins. It’s fingers tangled in hair, lips crashing like ships in a storm.Rick exhales erratically as he realizes he’s never wanted something or someone so much in his entire life."Or that one where Rick is oblivious because Rick is always oblivious.





	Objects In Motion

**Author's Note:**

> I know a million people are wondering about Of Love, Sex and Telephone Wires. It's coming. I just wanted to write a one-shot to get me back in the zone before I tackled a new chapter.

The house is locked when he gets home that evening, which wouldn’t be a problem except Rick is notorious for always forgetting his house key, so much so that almost every time Daryl goes on a run, he comes back with a lanyard or a chain. Rick has a whole drawer full of them now, everything from college sports teams to boy bands, from delicate silver strands to oversized gold chains that would never have held his key anyway. And still, they key sits in the bowl next to the front door and hardly ever leaves the house.

“Daryl,” he knocks, trying the handle again like the door has magically unlocked in the past 30 seconds. He knocks again, calling Daryl’s name a little louder, and then he turns away, sighing. He knows Carl’s on a patrol with Michonne, which means if Daryl isn’t home then Rick can’t take the hot shower he’s been dreaming about all day, put on his comfy pants, and sink down onto the couch. 

He turns away from the door, watching Aaron walk up the street toward his own place, carrying a small bag. Rick can guess the contents. Rations from Danielle, who took over for Olivia after they lost her. A few ibuprofen from the medical center for Eric who has never quite recovered from his war wounds. Rick waves at him and walks out to the street from his porch.

“You seen Daryl?” he asks, and Aaron looks up past him towards the home he shares with Daryl, Carl, and when either is visiting, Carol and Maggie.

“Forget your key again?” It’s a friendly ribbing, one he gets from most of the people around town. They started locking their doors some time ago, before Negan, when the Wolves got in and they found that even inside the walls, extra security wasn’t the worst idea. And for all his attempts to lead by example, this is one area Rick has never excelled in. 

“Funny,” Rick says. “But have you?”

“I’m pretty sure he’s home,” Aaron says.

“Didn’t open the door for me.”

Aaron doesn’t reply at first. Instead he stands there, looking awkward and uncomfortable, like he knows a secret that isn’t his place to tell.

“What?” Rick asks.

“Nothing,” he says. But it’s not nothing. Rick can tell that much.

“Is something wrong?” It’s been a long time since Daryl closed himself off from the group, but Rick remembers the other times, when Daryl would barely talk to any of them or would try to leave entirely. He looks back up the house, hoping he’s not going to have to break in and bring his best friend back to him.

“I shouldn’t really...” Aaron stops himself and holds up the bag. “I need to get back. Eric.”

“Aaron.” Rick says it more firmly than he means to, and the other man stops in his tracks, sighing.

“It’s just what you said at dinner last night,” he relents. “After. Maybe you shouldn’t have.”

He walks off without explaining further, and Rick scrubs a hand over his face, trying to rewind the day past patrols and meetings with Maggie, Ezekiel, and Natania to the previous night. 

It had been one of their family dinners, everyone in the group together. Even Maggie had made it this time, already there for the meeting the following day. God, what did he say?

Truthfully, Rick doesn’t remember saying much of anything. Carl had spent half the meal trying to get Judith to do her ABC’s for everyone. Rick had mostly sat there, watching and observing and smiling.

But Aaron hadn’t said during dinner. He’d said after. Rick reviews more of his mental footage, replaying everything the best he can given the fact that both he and his memory are inching closer and closer toward 50.

He’d been in the kitchen with Aaron and Eric, drinking homemade beers and joking around. Eric had gotten just drunk enough to start teasing Rick about being an eligible bachelor.

“There must be somebody you’ve got your eye on,” he’d said, leaning back in his chair. “Carol. Michonne.”

Rick had shaken his head, polished off the rest of his beer and popped open another. Eric kept listing.

“Rosita? Tara?”

“I think Tara’s off limits a bit,” Rick said. After all, she’d made it clear plenty of times where she stood on her preferences in romantic partners.

“Doesn’t mean you can’t have a crush on her.” 

“What’s everybody in here gigglin about?” Daryl had asked, coming into the kitchen and helping himself to a beer too. He’d hopped up on the counter top.

“Eric’s giving Rick a hard time about not settling down now that the war’s over,” Aaron had answered.

“I’m trying to figure out who he has a crush on,” Eric had said, swaying a little in his chair. “Maybe it’s you.”

Rick had reacted almost instantly.

“Daryl?” he’d laughed. “That’d be like kissing my brother.”

He rubs his temples as the memory replays. That couldn’t have been the thing he said wrong. But the memory keeps playing, and with his mind clear of alcohol, he can see what happens more clearly than he did the night before. Then, he figured Daryl stiffened as a reaction to Eric’s remark. But now he wonders if it was a reaction to his. And Daryl's thin excuse to leave the kitchen and check on Maggie who was getting bigger by the day. 

Another replay and he sees Aaron and Eric exchange a look as Daryl hops off the counter. Jesus, they knew. Rick wonders if the whole thing was some kind of weird set up.

And then something else clicks into place, the realization that if all of these things are true, then that must mean…

He looks back up at the house. Somewhere inside, Daryl is sulking, avoiding him because he’s hurt that Rick laughed at the mere suggestion of them.

He wants to kiss me.

And the former deputy can’t stop his brain from going there, from giving him an image of him and Daryl locked together in a kiss. And it’s not some chaste little moment, no. It’s the two of them wrapped around each other, vines entangling and intertwining until there would be no way of knowing where one man stops and another begins. It’s fingers tangled in hair, lips crashing like ships in a storm.

Rick exhales erratically as he realizes he’s never wanted something or someone so much in his entire life.

“Brother, my ass,” he mumbles, turning and marching toward the house with determination. And how could he have been so fucking stupid? How is he just now seeing it?

“Daryl,” he says, his voice on the cusp of a yell as he bangs on the door. And when there’s no answer again, he drops his voice, rasping out the next iteration of the other man’s name with authority. “Daryl, open the door.”

It takes a moment, but the door eventually swings open. Daryl’s across the room retreating from him by the time he makes it inside, and he knows the other man is heading for the stairs, for the comfort of his own room where he can lock the door and pretend Rick and his dumb stupid mouth don’t exist.

“Daryl stop,” Rick says, all authority again, and he watches the other man pause, his feet shuffling as he contemplates the order. But Rick didn’t mean to order him. “Please,” he adds as he catches up with him at the foot of the stairs, gently reaching out and touching his bare arm.

Daryl sighs and turns back around, trying to hide his gaze and expression under a mop of dark hair. But Rick can still see him, right down to the shards of pain slicing through the love and desperation in his eyes. And Jesus, Rick has been so goddamn oblivious.

“What you want?” he mutters, composing himself a little and shaking the hair out of his face. He only does that for Rick, only lets Rick see that closely. Ever since he grew it, the hair was a security blanket for him, but Rick gets to peer underneath it.

There’s a brief moment where Rick wonders if his next move is really the best course of action, but as Daryl’s blue eyes lock with his own, he can’t stop it. It’s a fundamental law of the universe that an object in motion tends to stay in motion, and if Rick’s being honest with himself, he and Daryl have been in motion for a very long time.

He nearly lunges forward, crashing his mouth against Daryl’s. And there’s a brief moment where the other man is stiff against him, his brain catching up with the present, but the second that moment is gone, Rick feels his lips vibrate with Daryl’s moan, feels a rough hand tangle in his hair, feels an arm encouraging him closer, closer, closer until they can barely breathe for the pressure on both their lungs.

And Rick realizes the kiss he’d imagined out there on the street had been just a shadow, a ghost of a possibility now made reality. Strands of Daryl’s hair slide between the fingers on both his hands and he can’t get enough, can’t get close enough, can’t dive his tongue deep enough. He hasn’t had a real breath in what feels like hours, but coming up for air would mean pulling away from lips that feel like they were made for his. And there's no way in hell he's doing that. 

They’re down on the stairs before Rick even realizes they’re sinking. Strong hands claw at his clothes, pulling his shirt free of its tuck and sliding up his back. He briefly thinks about stopping despite how much he'd rather not, a small part of his brain instinctively wanting to ask Daryl a million times if this is okay. But Daryl’s thighs are wrapping around his waist and Rick rolls his hips forward without hesitation, grinding into the heat between them.

When did he get so damn hard?

But Daryl’s hard too, his erection pressing against Rick’s with every roll of his hips, no, not just his hips. Their hips, because Daryl's moving too. They moan into each other’s mouths, bodies rolling faster and faster, closer and closer.

But no, no, this isn’t how Rick wants…

Somehow, Rick breaks the kiss, gasping in a breath the second their lips part.

“I want… if you…” Why can’t he just fucking say it? But he knows why. Because he wants to say twenty different things at once and he doesn’t know which one is more important.

I want to fuck you Daryl. If you want that too. I want to be with you until one of us dies, Daryl. If you want that too. I want to apologize for being an idiot. If you can forgive me. I want to wake up with you in my arms tomorrow. If you're willing. 

“Whatever it is, I do,” Daryl says.

Good enough. Rick reaches for the hem of the other man’s shirt, tugging it up and exposing the bottom of his stomach.

“Fuck,” he says, unable to stop himself.

“What?” Daryl asks, a small flitter of self-consciousness floating across his face. Rick stamps it out as quick as possible. No one so goddamn gorgeous should ever have to think for even a second that they might not be.

“Just wondering how the hell I didn’t realize this before. You. It was always you.” Rick carefully knee-walks down one step, lowering his mouth to the patch of exposed flesh. Tentatively, he darts his tongue out, tasting the salt of the other man’s skin. He wants this. Every day of every day until there are no more days.

And if anyone had told him earlier that morning that by dinner, he’d realize he not only had a crush but was hopelessly and irrevocably in love with someone, he would have laughed in their face. But here he was, kissing above the button of Daryl’s jeans and wishing they could somehow be closer, that he could squeeze the other man tight enough against him for them to actually mold into one being.

They could do that though. Almost.

Rick has another flash of imagined passion, one that’s all bare skin and Daryl’s legs tight around his hips. He sees himself buried to the hilt, nose pressed into the other man’s neck. He can almost hear Daryl breathing his name.

“Do you want me to...” Daryl asks, snapping him back to reality. The other man is staring at his crotch, at the very visible erection tenting his dark jeans.

“Can you wait right here for just a second?” Rick asks, and he hates that they have to break apart even for this, but he can’t risk hurting him. He would rather fucking die. “Or you can move if you want. Somewhere more comfortable.”

“Your room?” Daryl says, the inflection in his voice just uncertain enough to turn it into a question.

Rick kisses him, quickly before the temptation to kiss him and never stop draws him back in.

“Anywhere you want,” he says, standing up and helping Daryl off the stairs. “I’ll be right there.”

It doesn’t take Rick more than ten seconds to rip open the kitchen pantry and grab the coconut oil, and then he’s sprinting up the stairs like a teenager on prom night. When he throws open his bedroom door, he can’t help but gasp.

He expects to find Daryl on the bed, sitting there waiting for him. Instead, he finds him on the floor, a pillow from the bed cradled under his halo of dark hair. His shirt is gone, draped aimlessly over the foot of the bed, and his pants are undone, a casual invitation. He looks up at Rick and bites his bottom lip.

“We can be on the bed if you want,” Rick says, his eyes roaming all over the other man’s body. Every inch of him is a sinful, decadent dessert, and Rick can’t decide exactly which part he wants to devour first. 

“Imagined this a million times,” Daryl admits, averting his eyes. “This was the best.”

Rick kneels down beside him, setting the oil down on the hardwood and placing his hand in the middle of Daryl’s chest. Slowly, he maps the skin, sliding up the line between his pectorals and back down. Daryl trembles beneath him.

“When you imagined us, this, how were we?” Rick asks. His finger glides along the skin right above the waistband of Daryl’s jeans. He looks back up at the other man’s face and finds him chewing on his lip, his ears pink.

And Daryl doesn’t answer him, opting instead to wrap his hand around Rick’s, guiding it into his underwear. And Rick grabs his cock without a moment of hesitation, rotating his fist slowly up and down the shaft, teasing. He practically cums himself when he feels the wetness leaking out of Daryl’s slit. He catches some on his palm and debates bringing his hand out to taste it before deciding to use it to coat Daryl’s sensitive flesh instead.

And even though he moans and slowly fucks into Rick’s hand, the rubbing doesn’t last long before Daryl has his hand back on Rick’s. Inside his underwear, fingers close in on Rick’s digits, pushing some of them down, guiding Rick’s hand into a perfect fist save a single extended digit before nudging it down past his balls. 

“Jesus,” Rick gasps. “Do you have any idea how hot that is?” He slides down beside Daryl on the floor, laying against his side. Following through with Daryl’s little nudges, he finds his rim, teasing and rubbing it as he presses his lips back against the other man’s.

“Is this what you want?” Rick asks against his lips. “Me inside of you?”

He feels Daryl’s forehead press against his as the air between them grows heated with their breaths. Daryl nods, the motion rocking Rick’s head.

“Please,” he sighs, grinding against Rick’s single finger. And as much as it pains him, Rick pulls his entire hand free of the other man’s pants, groping for the coconut oil.

“Can you take those off for me, sugar?” Rick asks, and Daryl seems to shiver at the name before rolling onto his back and raising his hips up off the floor. He bites his lip, hesitates for one second, and then pushes his jeans and underwear down his thighs.

The rest of the dance isn’t elegant, and Rick can see the embarrassment on Daryl's features as he struggles to get the jeans over his ankles. But he does, laying back down on the floor and looking at Rick expectantly.

“Can you do something for me now?” Rick asks, pushing past his need to keep drinking every inch of Daryl’s body in from his shoulders to his cock to the legs that will soon be wrapped around his hips, pulling him deeper and deeper into his willing body.

“I’ll try.”

“First off, spread your thighs apart for me,” Rick says. Slowly, like a flower blooming, Daryl parts his legs, exposing every intimate place he has to Rick’s eager gaze. His already heavy breathing gets even more erratic.

“Good, Daryl, that’s real good,” Rick says. “Now promise me you’ll ask me to stop if you need me to.”

“Promise,” Daryl says. “Rick...”

“Yeah?”

“Have you done this before?” he asks. “Like this, I mean.”

“Yes and no,” he answers. “A few girls in high school wanted it like this, before Lori, but you’ll be my first.” He’d dreamed about guys in his days before Lori, and even a little after they’d gotten together, but he’d never actually gotten there. Just passing fantasies and nothing more. How he's never dreamed about Daryl the entire time they've known each other will haunt him forever.

Daryl seems oddly satisfied by his reply, nodding and settling back into something akin to ease.

“Can you do one more thing for me?”

“Yeah.”

Fingers slick with oil, Rick reaches forward, gently massaging Daryl’s opening yet again.

“Can you touch yourself?” Rick asks. “Real slow for me.”

Daryl’s hand twitches once before leaving the floor beside him. He slides it across his hips and lower abdomen, probably not even realizing just how damn sexy it is for Rick to watch his fingers skirt over his flesh.

“Slow,” Rick says again. “Just to help you relax.”

Daryl nods and grips his erection, fisting it and sliding his hand up and down in slow deliberate motions. And something in his eyes tells Rick it’s torture for him to hold back, but he looks so good doing it. So damn good.

“I’m sorry,” Rick says softly, easing the tip of his finger inside. He finds less resistance than he expected, and he wonders if Daryl has been in there himself or if it’s just his body in particular.

“What for?” Daryl asks, somehow getting the words out around the teeth digging into his bottom lip.

“Being so damn stupid.” Rick gets the whole digit in, leaning back to admire the place where Daryl’s body and his knuckle meet. “You should have had this a long time ago.”

“S’ok.” Daryl closes his eyes and lets his head roll a little to the side, his hair falling away from his neck and exposing a column of tanned skin. Rick could have had this for months, years even. He could already know what that particular patch of skin tastes like, what sounds Daryl makes when he cums, what twitches and expressions he makes when he’s right on the edge. He could have fallen asleep with him in his arms a hundred times and woken up to sweet morning kisses a hundred more.

The second finger goes in a little harder than the first, and the two of them work in tandem, Daryl’s slow strokes and Rick’s fingers. The man before him opens up bit by bit, adding digits until Rick’s satisfied that they can move on, that he can finally start making up for all the lost time between them. He pulls his hand away, gently wrapping it around Daryl’s fist and helping him stroke a couple more times before encouraging him to stop.

“Have you?” Rick asks, staring down at him. 

“Have I what?” Daryl’s breathing is picking up weight again, and it’s clear he’s anticipating what comes next. This thing he’s dreamed about so many times that he even had a spot picked out. Rick starts on his belt buckle.

“You asked me earlier if I’ve done this before. Have you?”

The tips of Daryl’s ears peaking out of his hair go pink again and he looks away.

“No.”

“With men or with anyone?”

“No,” he repeats. No one. Ever. And as he stands up to work his own jeans off, Rick tries to wrap his head around being not only Daryl’s first but potentially (hopefully?) his only.

Boots and pants abandoned next to his bed, he kneels down between Daryl’s thighs, placing a hand on both before sliding his palms upward.

“Can you...I mean.” Daryl sighs, clearly frustrated with himself for not being able to form a sentence. But to Rick, it's endearing that he's so nervous. And a little comforting too, because while he feels the need to be strong so they don't both fall apart, he's just as nervous as Daryl is. 

“What do you need, sugar?”

“Your shirt, if you don’t...”

“I don’t at all. Anything you want, Daryl. Anything.” Rick reaches for the top button, deftly working his fingers down so he can pull the button up off and toss it somewhere near Daryl’s shirt. Both of them are completely naked now, Rick kneeling between Daryl’s now-trembling legs.

“Know I’ve seen you like this before, but it’s different.” Daryl leans up a little, brushing Rick’s hips reverently with his fingertips before settling back down. 

“You can see me like this as much as you want,” Rick says, and Daryl nods. “I’m gonna...if you’re ready.”

“Been ready so long I don’t remember what not being ready feels like, Rick.”

Rick grabs for the oil, scooping out a semi-solid chunk and melting it over his length with the warmth of his hand. As he lines his body up with the man below him, Daryl starts to tremble more violently, his breath coming out in shaky little waves.

“Remember, if at any point you want me to stop,” Rick says again, rubbing the head of his cock against Daryl’s hole, and even that feels amazing.

“I don’t,” Daryl says. “I won’t.”

“But if you do.”

“Promised, didn't I?” Daryl asks, and Rick tries to think about how many successful conversations they’ve had with so few words, how many conversations they’ve had with no words at all. They understand each other. They get each other like no one else around them gets them. And with that thought, he starts to ease inside, to claim Daryl as his own once and for all with the knowledge that he would fight like hell before he ever let him go.  

At the first breach, Daryl’s eyes clamp shut and he shudders.

“Relax,” Rick says softly, practically cooing. "I'll go as slow as you need." 

Right on cue, Daryl’s body lets go, allowing him to gently slide all the way in, filling him. Rick’s head tilts back, his mouth gaping open as a sigh escapes. There had been the slightest chill in the air in the bedroom, and that’s making Daryl feel so much warmer around his cock. So tight. So hot.

He stays like that for a moment, just reveling in the feeling of being engulfed in the other man’s body. His hips want so badly to buck into the willing hole that is Daryl’s ass, but he forces them to stay still, to let him savor this moment, to let Daryl adjust to the intrusion. Because he doesn’t just want to fuck Daryl and fill him with cum, he wants Daryl get off as hard as he possibly. He wants to make him moan, to watch his eyes flutter or roll or both. He wants to see his hair damp with sweat, his skin coated in a light sheen of passion. He wants this moment there on his bedroom floor to be everything the other man ever dreamt it would be and more.

“How’s that feel?” he asks. “Okay?”

Daryl nods vigorously.

“I know you said you haven’t done this, but have you ever cum like this? By yourself?”

Daryl doesn’t respond for a moment, but slowly he tilts his head into a tiny nod.

“How’d you do it?” Rick asks, unable to stop himself. While he waits for the reply, he eases out until just the head of his cock remains, and then he dips back in. Daryl moans softly. 

“Guess when I first knew I was, fingers,” Daryl says. “Then other stuff.”

Rick slides both hands onto Daryl’s hips, tracing the bones under his skin with his thumbs. He rocks out and back in again.

“Other stuff?”

“Whatever I could find,” he says, his ears red again even as he rocks to meet Rick’s motions. “Markers. Screwdriver handle. Beer bottles.”

Rick imagines each one in turn, his mind going wild with the possibility of watching Daryl masturbate in real life, with the possibility of fucking him with anything and everything they can get their hands on. His hips rock faster at the thought, something that doesn’t seem to bother Daryl at all as his thighs raise up and clamp themselves around him. He feels one of Daryl’s calves against his lower back, the other man using it to hook around Rick and encourage him deeper, faster, harder.

“When’s the last time?” Rick asks, starting to pant around the words. There had been so much build up that he's not sure how long either of them will last. 

“Yesterday mornin,” Daryl admits. “You were gone to meet Maggie halfway.”

“Your fingers or?” Rick asks, and Daryl wraps his other leg around him too, tugging him with twice the force. With that, Rick loses all sense of taking it easy, and he starts to thrust into Daryl’s hole over and over, filling him and leaving him empty and filling him again.

“Fla-fuck, fuck.” Daryl raises his head and slams it back on the pillow before moaning low in his throat. It’s the sexiest sound Rick’s ever heard, especially coupled with the slick wet sounds of his cock sliding in and out of the other man’s body.

“What was that, sugar?” he grunts, watching with fascination as a bead of pre-cum drips from the end of Daryl’s cock, forming a line between his tummy and his slit. The former deputy reaches out with his thumb and catches it immediately before brining it to his mouth. It tastes like earth and tobacco. Like he should have imagined Daryl would taste.

“Flash..light.” Daryl grunts in the middle, raising his hips a little higher, and the change in angles seems to do something more, his mouth gaping open in a silent moan that goes on and on. Rick thinks about the flashlight he keeps on his bedside table and wonders if that’s the one he means. It’s not as massive as the Maglite by the front door, but it’d still be pretty impressive to see him stretch himself around it.

He can’t reply to him though, not anymore. The thought of even trying to form words is beyond him, and it seems beyond Daryl too, who has somehow pulled Rick’s shirt from the bed and balled it up in his mouth. Every thrust has him groaning around the fabric, his eyelids fluttering like a hummingbird’s wings.

It’s the most gorgeous thing Rick has ever seen in his entire life, and he can’t believe it’s for him, that he’s the one making him do all of it.

“Do you…” Rick loses the thought as his body inches toward climax, and it takes him a few deep thrusts to find it again. “Can you finish without… do you… your?” There’s nothing near a complete thought in there, but Daryl seems to know anyway.

He reaches down between them, his hand hovering near his cock. Rick swats it away gently and wraps his own fist around the other man’s length, dribbling saliva from his mouth down onto the head of Daryl’s erection.

“Fuck.” Rick can make out the word even mumbled around the shirt. Daryl moans again. 

“Mmm,” Rick agrees, everything in his body screaming at him to just let go and cum. But he refuses, not until Daryl finishes. He pulls his fist from base to tip, then slides it from tip to base. Each repetition sees him move faster, until he’s stroking his lover with vigor, doing his best to match the rhythm of his hips as he does so.

Daryl tries to speak again, moaning around the fabric in his mouth, and Rick knows exactly what he's trying to say. He's about to cum. 

“Me too,” Rick says. “Just waiting for you.”

Daryl grabs at the dark material trailing from his mouth, white knuckling one of the sleeves, and Rick can see the faint outlines of his abdominal muscles as his middle tightens, coiling for release.

“There you go, Daryl,” he says. “All over us.”

His back starting to bow upward, Daryl slaps a hand over the fabric in his mouth and groans loud in his throat, the sound rough and sexy in ways that Rick could never describe even if someone had a gun to his head demanding he do so. The hunter's cock twitches within his fist, and then starts spurting drips of milky white all over his stomach and Rick’s fingers. When it finally stops, Rick brings his hand to his mouth and laps eagerly before thrusting in to the hilt and letting go with a series of little pumps, groaning and filling Daryl with his release until it’s leaking out around him, a ring of white outlining the place where they meet.

When he’s finished, he pauses, panting in the afterglow, and then he pulls out slowly, watching his orgasm drip from his lover to the bedroom floor. Part of him wants to dive between Daryl's thighs to lap up every drop. Part of him wants to wipe it up with his fingers and let Daryl suck them clean.

But neither of those parts win over the one that just wants to collapse next to the other man and kiss every inch of his face. And that’s what Rick does. He pulls the shirt free, all wrinkled and coated with saliva before softly claiming Daryl’s lips, both cheeks, the tip of his nose, his sweat-damp forehead.

“I love you,” Rick says. He kisses Daryl’s forehead once more and then leans out so he can look him in the eyes before he says it again. “I love you.”

Daryl looks ready to sob, but he doesn’t. Instead of leans forward, clearly nervous despite the fact that Rick just kissed him and fucked him and told him exactly how he feels. A few hesitant jerks of his head and Daryl presses his lips against Rick’s. Rick doesn’t deny him, would never now that he knows he he feels, and he kisses back until Daryl is satisfied.

“Love you too,” Daryl says, the words right against Rick’s lips so much so that he feels them more than he hears them. “So much.”

“I know,” Rick says, brushing damp hair away from Daryl’s forehead. “Sorry again for making you wait so long.”

Daryl doesn’t answer for a minute, leaning back in for another nervous kiss before nuzzling his cheek against Rick’s beard.

“Worth every second,” he says, before leaning forward to bury his face in Rick’s neck. His leg worms it’s way between Rick’s knees and Rick drapes an arm over him, tracing abstract shapes on his bare back as he tries to memorize the exact scent of Daryl’s hair.

And there on the floor, between pressing kisses into Daryl's crown, Rick makes a silent promise. He'll never make Daryl wait for him again. Ever. 


End file.
